PHILADELPHIA — The potential $1 billion settlement of NFL concussion claims appears very close to winning final approval from a federal judge, to the chagrin of critics who believe the plan remains murky or pays too little to struggling former players.

Hours after Tom Brady led the New England Patriots to another Super Bowl title, the judge weighing the plan to cover some 20,000 NFL retirees suggested only a few minor revisions.

PHILADELPHIA — A Pennsylvania pastor who broke church law by presiding over his son’s same-sex wedding ceremony and then became an outspoken activist for gay rights can return to the pulpit after a United Methodist Church appeals panel on Tuesday overturned a decision to defrock him.

The nine-person panel ordered the church to restore Frank Schaefer’s pastoral credentials, saying the jury that convicted him last year erred when fashioning his punishment.

BEDFORD, Mass. — Philadelphia Inquirer co-owner Lewis Katz was killed along with six other people in a fiery plane crash in Massachusetts, just days after reaching a deal that many hoped would end months of infighting at the newspaper and help restore it to its former glory.

The 72-year-old businessman’s Gulfstream corporate jet ran off the end of a runway, plunged down an embankment and erupted in a fireball during a takeoff attempt Saturday night at Hanscom Field outside Boston, authorities said. There were no survivors.

PHILADELPHIA — About 170,000 customers remained without power in Pennsylvania and Maryland on Saturday, three days after a winter storm coated trees and electrical lines with ice.

The majority of those outages are in the Philadelphia area, where the utility PECO reported 155,000 outages.

That number includes nearly 60,000 customers in suburban Chester County, where 80 percent of residents lost power after Wednesday’s storm. Montgomery County still has 45,000 customers without electricity, while Bucks County has 33,000.

U.S. District Judge Anita B. Brody denied preliminary approval of the plan on Tuesday because she’s worried the money could run out sooner than expected. She also raised concerns that anyone who gets concussion damages from the NFL would be barred from suing the NCAA or other amateur football leagues.

PHILADELPHIA — A Roman Catholic church official who has been jailed for more than a year for his handling of priest sex-abuse complaints had his conviction reversed and was ordered released Thursday.

In dismissing the landmark criminal case, a three-judge appeals court panel unanimously rejected prosecutors’ arguments that Monsignor William Lynn, the first U.S. church official ever charged or convicted for the handling of clergy-abuse complaints, was legally responsible for the abused child’s welfare.

PHILADELPHIA — The NFL agreed Thursday to spend close to $800 million to diagnose and compensate potentially thousands of retired players who develop dementia or other brain injuries they blame on the violent, bone-crunching collisions that pro football has long celebrated in its highlight reels.

The settlement, which is subject to approval by a federal judge, was announced after months of court-ordered mediation. It came just days before the first game of the 2013 season, removing a major legal and financial threat hanging over the NFL.

None of it was worth it, a soccer mom-turned-“abduction hoax” mom told a federal judge Thursday before she was sentenced to more than eight years in prison for a $1 million swindle.

Bonnie Sweeten, 40, of Feasterville, is infamous for an alarming 911 call that claimed she and her 9-year-old daughter had been carjacked by two black men. She said they’d been stuffed into the trunk of another vehicle. She made an equally furtive call to her second husband.